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Bernie Sanders Campaign to Highlight ‘Immoral’ U.S. Economic System

Remarks come hours after Sanders launches his presidential campaign

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is running for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, said he is concerned that the current democratic system won't allow a non-billionaire to compete in a presidential race. Photo: Getty

Sen. Bernie Sanders said Thursday he would build his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination around a promise to remake an economic system he said rewards the wealthy at the expense of ordinary Americans struggling to make ends meet.

“That type of economics is not only immoral, is not only wrong—it is unsustainable,” Mr. Sanders said at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday. “The major issue is how do we create an economy that works for all of our people, rather than a small number?”

Mr. Sanders, who routinely sounds populist themes on the Senate floor, said that Americans were working longer hours for low wages and struggling to send their children to college and to pay for health care. He said that the richest Americans now owned a disproportionate share of the country’s wealth, and he made clear he would use a presidential bid to flesh out policy ideas for reversing that trend. Some of those approaches are likely to be unpopular with businesses.

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Mr. Sanders said he wouldn’t run a negative campaign, but he used his news conference to draw contrasts with Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state who is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Mr. Sanders, whose campaign is certain to fall to the left of Mrs. Clinton’s, noted that he had voted against the 2002 resolution authorizing war in Iraq—unlike Mrs. Clinton, a senator at the time, who voted in favor of it.

The Vermont independent also said that he was leading the Senate opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact among the U.S., Japan and 10 other nations that cover almost 40% of the world economy. The senator has said previous trade agreements have destroyed U.S. jobs and reduced wages at other U.S. firms trying to be more competitive with overseas companies.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said Thursday that his main presidential campaign issues for the 2016 Democratic nomination will be the economy and campaign finance reform. Photo: Getty

Mrs. Clinton had endorsed the Pacific trade deal when she was secretary of state, but since then hasn’t said whether she will support it.

On Thursday, she welcomed Mr. Sanders to the race. “I agree with Bernie. Focus must be on helping America’s middle class. GOP would hold them back,” she tweeted.

In weighing whether to run, Mr. Sanders said his biggest hesitation stemmed from the difficulty he would face raising the amount of money needed to drive a presidential campaign. He criticized a 2010 Supreme Court decision that overturned limits on political spending by corporations and unions, saying that the decision had ushered in an era in which the wealthy have disproportionate influence in the political process.

Mr. Sanders isn’t expected to harness a super PAC, a committee that can raise money without contribution limits but is barred from coordinating with a candidate’s campaign, a spokesman said.

“I wonder now in this day and age whether it is possible for any candidate who is not a billionaire or who is not beholden to the billionaire class to be able to run a successful campaign,” Mr. Sanders said Thursday. “If that is the case, I want you all to recognize what a sad state of affairs that is for American democracy.”

Mr. Sanders, a senator since 2007 and the top member of the Democratic caucus on the Senate Budget Committee, faces an uphill challenge to capturing the Democratic Party’s nomination. A Real Clear Politics average of recent polls found the senator with 5.6% support among Democratic primary voters—compared with 62.2% for Mrs. Clinton and 12.7% for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has said she isn’t running.

As a senator from a state with a population of around 650,000, Mr. Sanders is also relatively unknown. A 73-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., native with the accent to prove it, Mr. Sanders may also not fare quite as well on stage as the more well-groomed Mrs. Clinton or the fresh-faced Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland who is considering a presidential bid.

But as one of the Senate’s foremost liberals, Mr. Sanders could become the favored candidate of Democrats who, skeptical of Mrs. Clinton’s long-standing ties to Wall Street and large corporations, hoped Ms. Warren would enter the race. Party leaders in key states have said in recent months that they were troubled by the prospect of Mrs. Clinton gliding to the nomination without a serious challenge or even a debate, and voters in the party’s more liberal wing have said they are eager for an alternative to Mrs. Clinton.

It isn’t clear whether Mr. Sanders, a longtime independent, will join the Democratic Party. The Democratic National Committee requires a candidate seeking the party nomination to be a “bona fide Democrat,” but the document that outlines the party’s convention rules doesn’t define the term.

Longtime Democratic strategist Tad Devine will serve as a political adviser to Mr. Sanders’s campaign. Mr. Devine has previously advised Democratic candidates Al Gore and John Kerry in their presidential campaigns.

Mr. Sanders is expected to hold a kickoff event at the end of May in Burlington, Vt. This weekend, he will head to the early-nominating state of New Hampshire to attend a house party and address a labor convention. It will be his 10th trip to the state since 2014.